


A lady in pink

by Cysteine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:23:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cysteine/pseuds/Cysteine
Summary: There was a murder just behind The Minister's office. The "other" Minister's office. Mycroft has to contact his contact in the Auror office to figure out if a new "Wizarding War" is about to erupt.





	1. Chapter 1

"No identification?" Lestrade asked the uniformed officer. The body was behind the Red Lion, a three minute walk from Ten Downing Street. 

"Perhaps it was a robbery?" They replied in confusion. 

It didn't make sense; who would dare risk mugging and killing someone this close to the Prime Minister's office? 

Sherlock arrived to the perimeter of the scene, being held back by Sgt Donovan.

"Hooper isn't done yet, _freak_." Sally sniped bitterly as Sherlock attempted to curl his lips upward in a pleasing shape in order to persuade the microscope human  _...what's her name? Molly...?_ to let him pass. 

"Evening, Molly. Think I could have a go?" Sherlock asked as his faithful companion John Watson arrived breathless as he had to park the car outside of the police perimeter. 

"Sure; the coroner is about to pick up the body."

The woman was squat and covered in a garish pink outfit, which clashed against the dirty street beneath her. She was face down on the pavement in clear view of the security cameras that littered this area. 

_Her murder would be recorded._

"No petechial hemorrhaging suggesting asphyxiation, no ligature marks or signs of struggle, no wounds of any kind." Molly spoke to Dr. Watson as he looked down upon the body.

"Cause of death?" John asked curiously. 

"Stroke or heart failure, maybe? I'll know more once there's a full autopsy." Molly replied, surprised at the lack of evidence here. 

"Lestrade, who called this in? I want to see the security footage-"

"The Scotland Yard did. Apparently she just appeared here, dead on the ground. They backed up their footage and confirmed that she dropped dead out of thin air."

"Feels like there should be a suitcase nearby." John mused, looking around the alley.

"John, just because our last case with a woman in pink had a suitcase doesn't mean this one will have it as well..." Sherlock had a gloved hand patting the inside of her pink jacket, which extricated a wooden dowel with an intricate handle of just over 7 inches in length.

"Lestrade. Call Mycroft. This is one of  _his_ kind of cases."

* * *

Harry Potter was the youngest Auror of all time, namely for the same reason that he doesn't have the required NEWT's for the position: he was a war hero and the rules didn't apply to him. 

While it seemed great at first, he never had the respect of his peers for being unable to stay dead at Voldemort's hand. His use of a disarming spell to defeat a genocidal madman didn't help, either. 

He was known as the Muggle-born who brings a knife to a wand fight. 

So he was naturally confused to be in Kingsley's office this late for an emergency assignment. 

"Harry, I need you to work with the Muggle authorities on a high profile murder that just happened nearby their Muggle Minister's office."

"I don't mean to question your judgment, Minister, but why me?"

"You know the Muggle world better than I do. Most of the Aurors are Pure or Half-blood and spent their lives in only the magical community."

"...and?"

"...and the Muggle you'll be working with is... tediously insufferable."

"What about the Statue of Secrecy?"

"His brother Mycroft is exempt and I've been assured he will also keep our existence secret. He is eccentric but rational."

"You've met him before?"

"Wearing only a bedsheet in the Queen's Palace." Shacklebolt grit his teeth at the memory. 

"...and you're certain he's not a wizard?" Harry joked, knowing how horribly some wizards fail at Muggle fashion. 

"Of that I can be certain. The murder victim, however, is a witch we both know and despise."

The Minister handed Harry a Muggle photo on printer paper, which felt foreign in this building of magic. 

The wide, dead eyes of Delores Umbridge looked back at him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock looked on as the autopsy of the Jane Doe continued, puzzling Molly as she was looking for any sign of death.

"Dr. Watson, have you ever seen anything like this? Alive one minute, and then dead the next. It's like... magic."

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the superstitious girl as he replayed the video in his mind.

_The body didn't fall from a great angle, as if thrown out of a plane. The impact would have shattered bones. No vehicle was in the vicinity, so she wasn't thrown out of some van._

No, he mused, the body died and fell down from a standing position. He was certain that this should have been a stroke, but the physician who had analyzed her brain said that there was no evidence of a blood clot.

The body simply appeared on the ground, dead. He had been convinced that the tapes were doctored and this was some sort of elaborate hoax, but there was no reason to any of it.

A young man entered the morgue, eyes darting around as if to secure the facility as his hand was ready to pull out a pistol. Sherlock looked over the boy and decided that he wouldn't have been armed, it would have been a cell phone at the worst.

"Can we help you?"

"Prof- I mean, Mr. Holmes, I presume? I'm Harry Potter; my Minister spoke to Mycroft about having us partner on this." The way he looked at the body said that he knew the victim.

Sherlock looked over the young man again and recalled his brother's cryptic message. "You're  _law enforcement_ for some sort of magician community?" The boy  _(why can't I decide if he's a man or boy?)_ rubbed at his forehead absent-mindedly, and Sherlock noticed the discoloration on his left ring finger.

Harry looked to Molly and John nervously. "There's a Statute of Secrecy that must be upheld."

Sherlock would have shrugged if he ever did anything so  _pedestrian._ "John is my partner and will not divulge any of this case on his blog. Molly has no friends to speak of and is equally trustworthy."

"Thanks, I think." Molly said dryly.

"You knew the woman, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded darkly.

"The woman on the table is Delores Umbridge, a war criminal responsible for thousands of soulless Muggle-born-" Sherlock was taken aback at that.

"Excuse me, did you say she's a war criminal? I had her placed as some sort of paper-pusher, an avid lover of cats, but not able to kill thousands of... what did you say? Muggle?"

"Non-magic. Sometimes a child is born from a muggle family with the ability to do magic, and sometimes a magical family gives birth to a squib. So-called Pureblood wizards saw this as a threat to their way of life and there have been wars fought to keep magic in the hands of whom they consider 'pure'. She streamlined the process to have muggle-born witches and wizards to have their souls sucked out."

Sherlock looked at Harry and was ready to call him a fraud who invented a fantastic story, but there was a twitch in his eye that conveyed regret rather than deception.  _Harry believes what he is saying._  

"Magic can suck out a soul? Forgive me for being skeptical, Mr. Potter, but there's absolutely zero evidence-"

Harry pulled out a wooden dowel much like the one found on the body, and said the words "Expecto Patronem". The lights and the computer in the autopsy room flickered as if a brownout had just occurred. The computer beeped angrily as it had to reset, setting Molly on edge.

_The Morgue has its own backup generator so that a power outage cannot happen, despite what occurs to the electrical grid overall._

"You made the lights flicker?"

"I actually sent a Patronus message to my friend... but as you can see, or really cannot see, you are unable to see some types of magic... only the interference it creates around electricity. There are magical creatures, invisible to the muggle eye, that suck out souls. She used them as efficiently as Hitler did the gas chambers." It was obvious that he was glad that she was dead.

 _If this all were true, why wasn't she imprisoned?_  

"I can rationalize that you have the ability to generate an electromagnetic pulse with that stick of yours, but the idea of souls evokes the image of patchouli-infused hippies making life decisions based upon some crackpot's astrological predictions involving Uranus in retrograde."

"A... magical lobotomy. It doesn't kill them, but it takes away every last shred of humanity from an individual."

"Walking, living corpses then?"

"No, not walking corpses." Harry swallowed down genuine fear. "Those are usually instructed to kill by a dark wizard, and they feel absolutely zero pain. The Dementor's Kiss that 'sucks the soul out' makes them walking... comatose patients."

"If what you say is right, and that some sorts of... magic... then where did this supposed magical war happen?"

"Here in the U.K. Ended over in the Scottish Highlands."

"You are testing my patience, Mister Potter. My Homeless Network would have noticed something as blatant as warfare and have informed me."

"...you exploit homeless people for intelligence?" Harry frowned at that. "I sent a servant to tail a classmate of mine once, so perhaps I shouldn't complain."

 _The boy is resourceful,_ Sherlock nodded slightly in approval.  _If only John could do the same with all of his carnal trysts..._

"What evidence do you have that a war happened under my nose here in the UK?"

"The hurricane that hit last year on Christmas? The collapse of the Brockdale Bridge? The strange non-stop fog that went on for months?"

Sherlock remembered the windstorm. "Windstorm Yuma lasted for three days, killed six people, and disrupted the national grid." He looked to Harry's wooden implement and postulated that perhaps magic  _was_ real, and that the Brockdale Bridge collapse was done on purpose, and that the fog was a side effect of whatever spellwork was being slung around.

"The Brockdale Bridge was an act of terrorism; and, judging from us having this conversation, your side won. So how does that leave this woman here, rather than in whatever your lot do for prison?"

"That we don't know." Harry replied with a resigned sigh. "Mr. Holmes, as fascinating as this conversation has been, I do not think you'll be able to help me with this investigation as you are far outside of your element here. I do not have the time to explain the magical world to you as this was a magical crime and she was hit with a Killing Curse. I don't know how much help you can be in determining anything."

Sherlock did not like this  _boy_ telling him that his mental acuity could not be harnessed in this challenging case.

"Mister Potter, I can deduce that, if indeed 'magic' is real, that you are a war veteran..."

"Oh god he's doing it again." John muttered, huffing as if to wait for Sherlock to finish his excoriating of the young man.

"...You have recently been divorced, quite possibly a rushed-into marriage to a school-age sweetheart who Hero worshipped you all your life. You recently lost some sort of wound or scar that defined you, but now that it is gone you don't know what's expected of you. And that you're attracted to authority figures, perhaps you're a closet bisexual who got too close to a professor during your time in a boarding school.

"Further, if I take your postulation that there had _indeed_ been a magical, underground war between various factions and before us lies a war criminal who escaped justice, then this murder was done either by a loyal member of the terrorist group she unknowingly helped, or by one of your lot who took the law into their own hands. The location of the body either signifies that the terrorist Pureblood group wishes to flout your Statute of Secrecy, indicating that they find non-magic users to be inferior and to be conquered. Or that whomever is on your side is unwilling to let criminals get away by attempting to live in the most secured areas in so-called 'Muggle' society.

"Either way, one thing is certain: she will not be the only murder victim. I live at 221B Baker Street, you and your colleague can meet us there once they catch up."

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the forensics here; it's more than just a hobby of mine and I'm glad to put it to some use in my writing.

Harry used the knocker at 221B Baker Street, surprised when an older woman answered the door.

"Oh you must be the magician consultant he spoke of, I'm Mrs. Hudson." 

She turned to Hermione. "Sherlock was convinced that your _partner_ would be male. Well, he can't always be right. He and John are upstairs."

The pair of them thanked her and made their way up the stairs.

"Ronald still not talking to you?" Hermione asked with a wince.

"Ginny doesn't understand why I divorced her; and as long as she keeps seeing me as The Boy Who Lived, she'll never understand me." Harry rubbed his forehead again with a frown.

"Not used to the scar being gone?" She asked as they made their way into the receiving room where Sherlock was composing a song on his violin. His lightning-bolt scar had disappeared after Voldemort hit him with the killing curse, and the phantom itching that happened now was nothing like the pain he once experienced. Harry had researched psychosomatic symptoms and had decided that it was some sort of subconscious anxiety for having lost it.  _Sherlock was indeed good at noticing that._

"Ah, Mister Potter. You brought..." Sherlock trailed off as in invitation for introductions.

"This is my friend Hermione Granger. Ronald could not make it." Harry ad-libbed as Hermione stepped forward and shook his hand.

Sherlock let go of Hermione's hand, noticing the faint paper cut on her right index finger and a dirty Victorian-era wedding ring on the left ring finger. As he directed his attention towards Harry, he lifted a ginger hair from the collar of her blouse.

"Lie," Sherlock said, almost too loudly. "He did not want to be here; you two had a row. Miss Granger, are you in magical law enforcement as well?"

"No, sir, I'm with the regulation and control of magical creatures. My husband Ronald Weasley-"

"-sent you in his place? No, you're too assertive to play the doting, obedient wife." Sherlock stepped in a bit too close as he looked her over; not in the way most men judge women as if they exist for sexual gratification, but rather to inspect her as a whole. She had a smudge of ink on the edge of her right hand, a suit where the slacks didn't match the coat, and a pair of slim, square-framed glasses were low on her nose in stark contrast with Harry's round glasses. She was well put-together with a few touches of sloppiness, whereas Harry was sloppy all over with a few touches of order as evidenced by his rumpled suit and loose tie.

 _Quite the Yin and Yang._  

"Sherlock, quit it with the parlor tricks." John called out from his laptop as Harry thought back to what he had said earlier.

"Actually, I'd like an explanation for this morning," Harry interjected, "because it was as if you could read my mind. How did you know all that about me?"

"The tan line on your left ring finger suggests that you have recently been divorced, your age suggests that it was a teen romance that would inevitably crash and burn, and since you're in a type of law enforcement, you've probably been on this journey to play 'the good guy' since you were a zygote. As for any such wizarding war, you sweep a room with your eyes for potential threats like John here does; either you're paranoid or you've seen warfare. I was inclined to stick with paranoia but you didn't automatically brandish that wooden dowel that you used earlier. As for your former wound, you touch your forehead in the same way someone would want to scratch at a missing limb, and the way you wear your hair like an unruly mop means that you've spent your entire life trying to cover it up because everyone wanted to stare at it, which on some level defined who you are today. 

"Now that it's missing, however, you do not know who you are. Judging from your age and your position, you did not earn your place through the standard procedure... no, you were _awarded_ the position, meaning that your peers look down upon you even more than usual."

"What about the bisexuality and boarding school rubbish?"

Sherlock huffed at that. "Please, that was the easiest part. Your pupils dilated ten percent at the sound of my voice, and since the use of magic requires to be hidden from society in general, the best way to ensure the education of young _wizards and witches_ , including the muggle-born, would be a magical boarding school. Add to the fact that you nearly called me 'Professor', suggests that you had a crush on one of your teachers back at whatever academy you matriculated from. Deduction is less of an exact art and more of a subtle science, in my perspective."

Harry and Hermione share a knowing glance with each other as Sherlock took the ginger hair and put it under a microscope.

"Miss Granger here didn't come on her husband's request; I daresay she is here without his knowledge. Seeing how Harry is held in such low esteem where he works, the only person who would be his partner in such a venture must be his childhood friend, aka 'sidekick'. The lack of calluses on her hand suggest she's either really good at controlling magical creatures, or really bad and only does the paperwork as evidenced by the paper cut on her right index finger.

"The glasses are for reading purposes only, but you read a lot. And according to the medullation pattern of the hair I pulled from your collar..."

Sherlock frowned, unhappy with his conclusion. "Orange tabby cat. Boring. But indicative that you can handle animals rather than simply stay behind a desk. The smudge of ink on the edge of your hand suggests that you do paperwork that requires a fountain pen and inkwell, which denotes backwards thinking in the magical community as they seem be hesitant to embrace _the ballpoint pen_ , therefore your modern, muggle heritage must make doing things downright frustrating for you. A young lady your age who defies her husband and works in a department for magical creatures must be some sort of activist or champion for their rights; perhaps you're even vegetarian from a political mindset." Sherlock saw the positioning of their bodies in relation to each other and made yet another mental note.

Harry and Hermione look at each other again in bewilderment. "Okay, he's good." Harry says, leaving Hermione nodding, dumbfounded.

"How did you know we're muggle-born?" Hermione was utterly fascinated at Sherlock's deductions. He raised an eyebrow in challenge as John began to wonder that himself. 

"I met Cornelius Fudge and Kingsley Shacklebolt ages ago; their concept of fashion was... fascinating. You two have never dated but you both seem quite close, and, judging from your familiarity here, were raised in the 'muggle' world. The wedding ring on your finger suggests that your husband, Harry's 'partner', is not. I'd say family heirloom but it's cheap victorian work and gaudy. The lack of cleaning it means that you don't wear it out of pride, but merely to appease your husband and his family." It took Sherlock another moment to jump to the next conclusion. "Your ex wife is the sister to your missing partner."

Sherlock's phone beeped and he read the incoming text. "Molly is processing the evidence we could collect. John, be a dear and flag down a taxi for us."

As Watson dutifully obeyed Sherlock, he arched an eyebrow to Hermione. "Now, tell me what I  _don't know_ about your world and who would be next to be murdered."

* * *

Molly nodded her greeting to Sherlock, John, Harry, and raised an eyebrow at Hermione. The Granger girl introduced herself as being 'with Harry', which eased her mounting jealousy.

 _Perhaps I should curl my hair and he'll notice me._  

"Any results?" Sherlock asked as he saw the 'wand' (As Hermione had called it on the way over) in a clear plexiglass case with a hot plate containing an aluminium tray that was smoking profusely, filling the case with a white fume.

"Nothing luminesced under the ALS. I fingerprinted the Jane Doe-"

"-Delores Umbridge." Hermione corrected her.

"I have no records of anyone under such a name and I'm running the prints through Eurodac and the American AFIS system to see if she's in either one. If she's a war criminal, she should be in INTERPOL." Molly continued, directing her attention to the wand. "As this is wood, standard fingerprinting methods will not be as effective so I'm using cyanoacrylate fuming."

Harry looked at her in confusion as Hermione came to the rescue again.

"Superglue. That stuff cures at the slightest bit of moisture."

Molly nodded, delighted that someone else understood this. "The curing is triggered by a hydroxyl ion, which easily forms as water can disassociate easily and also make hydronium..." she trailed off, realizing that nobody was paying attention. "It bonds to finger oils easily."

The HPLC alerted that it was done testing a sample and Sherlock automatically took over, reading the results before the forensic technician could.

"According to the chromatogram, the decedent had no foreign substances in her body." Sherlock frowned at that.

"What about-" Molly tried to ask.

"Homocysteine levels are normal; not a stroke." He spoke over her, looking visibly agitated. "This is Amelia Bones all over again."

Molly seemed to be equally perturbed at this. "I can get footprints out of dust. I can get fingerprints from the sticky side of duct tape. I cannot get _one shred of evidence_ that tells me why this woman is dead."

Hermione pointed to the wand in the fuming chamber. "Want me to see what the last spell she cast was?" She pursed her lips in contemplation. "It won't affect the fuming process."

Molly looked at her in disbelief. "Spell casting?"

Hermione sighed and pointed her wand at the suspended wand in the fuming case. "Priori Incatatem!" 

Above the wand floated the spell name, written in an ancient runic language. Hermione apologized and flicked the wand again, translating it into English.

 _Disillusionment_  

"What the devil is 'disillusionment'?" Watson asked while Sherlock looked at Hermione.

"How were you able to do that and not affect the lights here?"

"I'm much more controlled with my magic." Hermione said simply, casting the disillusionment charm on herself. "See? Disillusioned."

John and Molly gaped at how she was completely transparent, practically invisible is she stood still. Sherlock tilted his head and kept peering through her. 

"Modification to the refractive index of light on relation to your body." He pulled out his mobile and took a picture to confirm his theory. "Definitely not a spell that affects only human sight."

John reached out and poked Hermione to confirm she was actually there. "This is fascinating..."

"And why we couldn't see the body until she dropped dead. I take it that her spell ended with her death."

Harry shook his head. "That's not usually the case. if it were done by a proficient person, it could last for years."

Hermione continued the thought. "It means someone, possibly the killer, saw her and uncovered the body, on purpose."

"Then this is a message. You will have more bodies turn up."

Sherlock could, if he tried really hard, see the outline of Hermione. She had taken off her glasses and held them out towards the renowned detective. 

He took them gingerly, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Hermione. The glasses became visible once she let go.

"I was about to ask-"

"I can still see slight distortions." Sherlock put them on and looked directly at Hermione. 

"I charmed the glasses to see through magical enchantments. Perhaps you'll have luck reviewing the evidence with these."

Sherlock could see Hermione now, and noticed a thin amber glow about her. 

"Did you realize you're glowing?"

"Magical signature. Harry is slightly rose."

"I'm pink?" Harry questioned, "Why didn't you say I'm pink?"

"Because I knew you'd react poorly." Hermione huffed as Molly used a vaccuum to remove the gas from the fuming chamber. Sherlock, of course, didn't wait long before he reached in and pulled out the wand and compared the impressions to the victim's fingerprints.

"Central Pocket Loop Whorl on the ring finger, tented arch on the thumb, the rest are loops. Based on the extreme probability of the first two patterns, I would say that she held her wand last."

John frowned at the situation and turned to Harry. "We will need a list of people who hated her, to make a list of suspects."

Harry raised the back of his right hand, where you could clearly read "I must not tell lies" was carved into his flesh. "She tortured students before she used the ministry to systemically suck the souls out of the muggle-born. It might be easier to tell you who her allies were."


End file.
